There is a version of the talent conversation that sounds like a crisis. Enrollment in advertising and communications programs has declined. The junior hiring pipeline that once fed agencies a ...

Consumers and business buyers alike are presented with more content than ever, yet the window to make an impression has never felt narrower. For small and mid-sized agencies competing against ...

Not long ago, the AI industry was telling anyone who would listen that lawyers, accountants, programmers, and analysts were on borrowed time. The same message landed in agency conference rooms ...

At a recent Second Wind JAM Session, we opened with a simple question: what's actually working right now? The conversation covered new business momentum, acquisitions, platform strategy, and the ...

Global ad spending is up. Agency revenues are shrinking. Ad spending grew 8.6 percent year over year in 2025, yet holding company revenues fell 1.2 percent. The traditional ...

Agencies have always had to fight for attention. Now they have to fight for belief. Too many channels, too much noise, and a level of consumer skepticism that did not ...

When clients take work in-house, it is hard not to take it personally. Relationships built over years get handed to internal teams, and the instinct is to wait them out ...

Targeting was supposed to make creative less important. Reach exactly the right person at exactly the right moment, and the message almost didn't matter. That thinking shaped two decades ...

The most durable marketing asset you can build, for your agency and your clients, is third-party validation. Coverage, mentions, and citations carry more weight than anything you publish yourself. That ...

Generative engine optimization isn’t a break from SEO. It’s where everything you’ve been doing is headed. GEO is the process of shaping your client’s presence so ...

As the AI era accelerates, the ability to move quickly matters more than ever. The clearest path there is building a connected, agency-wide operating program that AI can actually work ...

Disney just cut 1,000 marketing jobs. New CEO, first major move, and most of the damage landed in marketing. Here's what actually happened.

For years, Disney ran marketing ...

Fifty years ago, on April 1, 1976, a date that sounds more like a punchline than a beginning, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, better known as Woz, started something in ...

Let’s face it: competition in the agency world has never been more intense. With low barriers to entry, the number of players continues to grow. Every time a client ...

At a recent Second Wind Jam Session, we asked agency owners and account leaders to weigh in on a timely question: What does great account leadership mean now? The conversation ...

The results of our 2026 Agency Health & Growth Check are in, and one thing is clear, agencies are moving quickly with AI, but the old challenge of keeping a steady ...

At Second Wind, one of the best ways to keep your agency on track is to peek under the hood and learn from others. That’s why we hosted a ...

Account service is where most agency financial results are actually decided. Not in the pitch. Not in the creative reveal. But in the everyday moments when scope is clarified, priorities ...

Small and midsize agencies are navigating a unique mix of opportunity and pressure in 2026. Technology continues to drive efficiency and expand capabilities, yet many firms are managing tighter client ...

Financial success in an agency can no longer rest solely with the principal or controller. There are simply too many opportunities to make or lose money throughout the workflow. In ...